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As a fellow tech worker (at age 50), IMO you may never be employed in your field again. Over about 38 years old in Tech means that you're just too old. Sorry to say it, but that's the way it is. I wish you the very best of luck in your job search.

Goodyear taking 2 weeks off (Aug. 16) Goodyear is taking another weeklong break from making tires in Fayetteville.
That means that workers will again have to draw unemployment benefits for a time.
Production at the Ramsey Street plant will be put on pause from Saturday through Nov. 1, said plant spokesman Richard Evans.
The reason, Evans said, is to “align production with reduced customer demand.”
That’s the same reason Goodyear officials gave for a two-week halt in Fayetteville in August, which followed a one-week halt in July.
So this will be the fourth week that the plant will sit idle this year — a year in which motorists have been driving fewer miles and therefore putting less wear on their tires.
A corporate Goodyear spokeswoman could not be reached for comment Monday.
But the trade publication Modern Tire Dealer reported Friday that in addition to the Fayetteville plant, Goodyear facilities in Union City, Tenn., and Gadsen, Ala., would halt production during the last week in October. The publication also reported that Goodyear’s Lawton, Okla., plant will take off four Sundays in a row.
Goodyear employs about 3,000 people and is Cumberland County’s largest corporate tax payer with a total tax bill of $1.6million last year.
Fayetteville employees who will stay home during the weeklong halt will be eligible for unemployment benefits during that time, said Daryl Jackson, president of United Steelworkers Local 959. But it won’t match what a typical Goodyear employee earns.
Still, Jackson said, “if you look around and you see what’s going on with layoffs, we’re fortunate. As it stands, we’re just going to be off that last week in October and possibly a week around Christmas, although there’s no definite answer on (December).”
Officials with Goodyear and the union say the production halts shouldn’t be seen as a precursor to layoffs.
Jackson said he has heard some recent break-room buzz about job cuts. But to his knowledge, there is no truth to any of the rumors.
“Part of the reason for taking time out is so that (Goodyear) won’t have to lay anybody off,” Jackson said.
Evans, the company spokesman, said: “Goodyear monitors the market every week and makes adjustments when needed. And no, there have been no announcements other than the one week in October.
But he added: “Who can speculate within this economy?”
He could not address any later production halts.
Beyond the what is planned for next week, Evans said, “there are no additional announcements from Goodyear.”
Jackson said the automotive industry, like the housing market, is hurting. That obviously affects the plants that feed the market.
“Every time you pick up the newspaper or listen to the news, there’s another plant shutting down,” Jackson said.
He mentioned Georgia Pacific’s recent announcement that it would “indefinitely idle” its lumber plant in Columbus County, where 350 people work.
“We’re very fortunate to be in the situation that we are in,” Jackson said.
“We are still in bad economic times, but it’s going to get better,” he said. “I believe help is on the way.”Staff writer Rebecca Logan can be reached at loganr@fayobserver.com or 486-3582.

the snowball economic failure of job and production losses and stagnation begins.

Look around, the top of the hill isn't even visible anymore because the size of the snowball overshadows all NOW. There is not enough money on the planet for any politician to fix this mess, this is especially so since the first thing any of them do is make sure their own pockets gain more lining.

Neither candidate will be able to do anything about their empty promises because all the money has already been transferred to the top and will remain there until most of us are even more hopelessly enslaved or dead.

Confidence in and of itself does not pay the bills for business or families.

This whole mess is about the excesses in everything by everyone that has been going on for a long time, but the ones towards the top of the heap have indulged in obscene excesses and now want us all to pay.

Too much of everything is the reason for the layoffs. greed, avarice, and obsession with accqiring more and more when one has plenty already.

Around here they are still building the strip malls and shopping centers and new Mcmansions and "planned communities" while many of the ones that were built in the last 5 years still have many empty buildings. They continue to throw money on the economic bonfire to try to put it out.

L.

The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside.
Allan Bloom; The Closing of the American Mind

Tulsa-based Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Inc. announced late Thursday afternoon that it has reduced its overall work force by approximately 6 percent, including 107 in at its Tulsa headquarters.

The goal, officials of the car-rental company said in a press release, is to adjust its cost structure for current economic conditions.

The total work force reduction involved approximately 400 employees.

Before the cuts, Dollar Thrifty employed 850 in Tulsa and 7,000 worldwide.

"We are taking this difficult action not only in response to current industry conditions, but also as part of our long-term commitment to profitable operations in both good times and bad, and to an organizational structure that remains flexible and well positioned to take advantage of opportunities as they arise," said Scott L. Thompson, president and CEO.

"Today's industry challenges have unfortunately required that we accelerate our efforts to realign our work force and become more efficient."

The moves are expected to produce annual savings in the 2009 fiscal year of about $15 million, officials said.

Dollar Thrifty expects that the work force reduction will also result in a charge in the fourth quarter of approximately $4 million for estimated cash severance payments.

The company's stock has plunged from $35 a share in October 2007 to its close at $1.42 Thursday. In addition, longtime CEO Gary Paxton recently announced his retirement. He was replaced by Thompson. Dollar Thrifty operates the Dollar and Thrifty car-rental brands.

Symantec will lay off an undetermined number of workers before the end of the year as part of a cost-cutting move in the economic downturn, a company spokesman said on Thursday.

The company, which gave guidance on Wednesday that was short of analyst expectations, plans a 4.5 percent cost savings in its workforce budget and will reduce the headcount enough to accomplish that, said spokesman Cris Paden.

Paden said he did not know how many employees would be laid off as a result, but said the layoffs will be global, will vary across geographies, and that no specific business units were being targeted.

"We are shooting for a specific (cost savings) figure. So whatever gets us to that figure" will be done, he said. The goal is to maintain soundness of Symantec's financials "given how unpredictable the economic environment is right now."

Symantec will start alerting employees within the next month, according to Paden.

The move is separate from an initiative started over a year ago but which is ongoing to outsource the IT operations to EDS, Paden said.

The workforce budget includes costs for salaries, bonuses, and benefits for the company's 17,500 employees worldwide.

Keep your chin-up...I too am in Tech and for the last almost 20 years been the top person or the 2nd person in IT in each company I have worked at.

I was downsized last year at the age of almost 52 and was indeed back out on my own for 7 months. I at least had a base of previous consulting clients to fall back on that had enough work to keep my head above water but I landed a great position in April and am once again the 2nd top guy in IT here (my boss is 10 years younger than me so it is an interesting relationship).

Our story is that the young IT bucks here couldn't hack it...the 20-30 somethings...so they cleaned IT house and started over to a large extent and now virtually all of us with a very few exceptions are all 40 or older.

We had all pretty much "been there, done that" and could "do it" again as we have been proving. We're in an industry that does very well in normal times and even better in rough economic times.

Legg Mason Capital to cut up to 35% of staff
By Douglas Appell, Pensions & Investments
October 30, 2008
Legg Mason Capital Management will lay off from 40 to 50 of its approximately 140 employees in response to an “unprecedented market environment,” said spokeswoman Mary Athridge.

No senior investment professionals will be affected; the cuts will be focused on operations and administrative personnel, she said.

Ms. Athridge said the “very difficult decision” to make broad layoffs for the first time in the firm’s 26-year history reflected the need to “size the company appropriately” amid a plunge in equity markets this year that has been particularly hard on value managers.

In an earnings conference call Wednesday, Mark R. Fetting, president and CEO of parent Legg Mason Inc., said Legg Mason Capital Management’s client assets stood at $28 billion as of Sept. 30, down by more than half from $59.7 billion at the end of 2007.

Don't think tax rates matter to business decisions? Ask H. Wayne Huizenga, the owner of the Miami Dolphins, who declared earlier this week that he intends to sell up to half his ownership in the NFL franchise before next year. Why? Because as he told a Florida newspaper, Barack Obama "wants to double the capital gains tax, or almost double it. I'd rather give it to charity than to him."Further Reading

Mr. Obama is in fact proposing to raise the capital gains tax to 20% from 15% -- which would be an increase of 33%, but Mr. Huizenga is close enough for IRS work. His office confirmed to us that he stands by that statement, though he prefers not to elaborate on it. Mr. Huizenga also has NFL company. In July, we wrote about the Rooney family's musings about selling part of the Pittsburgh Steelers to avoid the 45% death tax rate.
We saw a similar tax effect in 1992 when Bill Clinton raised tax rates. The Wall Street crowd accelerated income, bonuses and stock sales to pay the 31% rate, not the expected higher rate. One of those who cashed out in 1992 was Robert Rubin, who would soon join the Clinton Administration.
One economist who observed this tax avoidance was Austan Goolsbee, of the University of Chicago, who is now a top Barack Obama adviser. In a 1999 paper, "What Happens When You Tax the Rich?," Mr. Goolsbee wrote that "the higher marginal rates of 1993 led to a significant decline in taxable income." Many of the superrich were able to change the timing of compensation to avoid paying the higher rates. Mr. Goolsbee concluded this was merely "a short term shift," but it did cost the Treasury revenue it had been anticipating.
Dolphin fans can debate Mr. Huizenga's virtues as an owner, but he's right about taxes.
Please add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum.

Mikhail Metzel Associated Press
Listings of job vacancies were drawing attention in Moscow last week. The economic crisis in Russia is entering a more uncertain phase, as additional companies cut staffing levels, slash salaries and trim working hours.

Share Print Email Del.icio.usDiggTechnoratiYahoo! BuzzMOSCOW — It would have been easy in the past for Yulia Vasilevskaya to find work after being laid off from her job in the legal department of a private Moscow company.

Instead, the 27-year-old lawyer with two degrees and ample private sector experience is stuck combing job listings and job fairs where the vacancies are noticeably more blue-collar.

“What’s new for me is that I used to be able to find work in a week, a few days,” she said.

Russia’s economy is beginning to swoon, battered mainly by its troubled financial sector. Now, the crisis is entering a more uncertain phase, as more companies cut staffing levels, slash salaries and trim working hours. It’s a trend affecting not only those in low-paying manufacturing jobs, but also bankers, lawyers, stock brokers and insurance workers.

“It’s a crisis of the middle class,” said Dmitry Oreshkin, an independent analyst. “This is an entirely new phenomenon for Russia, and it’s hard to say what will happen.”

Russian stock markets are down more than 75 percent since their May peaks, the ruble has lost more than 13 percent against the dollar since August, credit rates are skyrocketing, oil and commodity prices are plummeting, the Kremlin is injecting billions into the staggering banking sector. GDP growth is slowing, after starting the year at more than 7 percent, and is forecast to fall to as low as 3 percent next year.

So far, few are predicting mass unemployment. The country’s economy is more developed than during the last downturn 10 years ago.

There are no hard numbers for how many have lost jobs since the country’s finances began shredding this summer.

National unemployment at the end of September stood at just 5.3 percent, according the State Statistics Service.

But Russian news media are filled daily with reports of layoffs. That’s taking the shine off of the prosperity that Putin oversaw when he was president.

Polls show the psychological effect of a declining ruble and growing joblessness is already weighing on many, despite persistently upbeat reports on state-run TV channels and government assurances.

One poll released Monday by the All-Russia Opinion Research Center found that 35 percent of Russians personally know people who have lost their jobs, with 10 percent saying they know of many.

Analysts said while the job market in the largest cities may be more resilient, poorer regions will be harder hit

My best friend works at Valley View Hospital. She called me as soon as I
got home from work yesterday. She was very upset because
they had just told them that they would lose their jobs in 2 weeks.

The thing the paper and all the news articles aren't saying in the majority
of the people at Ada losing their jobs are getting close to retirement. They
all have been there for 20+ years. Karen, is just devastated and don't know
what to do. She said they would be losing their retirement. She said that
she never dreamed she would ever lose her job being a nurse.
When I talked with her tonight she felt confident that her husband wouldn't
be losing his. He works at a plant there in Ada. However, I'm real worried
about his too. Of course, I've tried talking to them in the past about
things but like most people they are just DGI.

127 people to lose jobs at Valley View HospitalADA — Valley View Regional Hospital today announced layoffs would take place this week.

A total of 127 employees will be laid off, according to Valley View President and Chief Executive Officer Ron Webb. The layoff represents 15.5 percent of the Valley View work force.

“This is a very tough and unpopular action we are undertaking, but, regrettably, it is a necessary action,” Webb said. “The health care environment has changed dramatically in Oklahoma and the country. Valley View must change if it is to operate successfully in that environment.”

Valley View is a not-for-profit community hospital serving Ada, Pontotoc County and the surrounding area. It is a 200-bed acute care facility that generates approximately $70 million in annual net patient revenue.

Employees affected by the layoff will receive severance payments based on years of service amounting to one week’s pay for each year of service, up to 12 years.

Webb said arrangements have been made for those losing their jobs to meet with the Department of Commerce for advice to apply for unemployment and to apply for jobs.

He said they are also working with the Chickasaw Nation in the case the tribe needs some of the staff being laid off.

“We’re really working to try to help them find jobs,” Webb said.

The decision to layoff so many people was made Tuesday night during a board meeting.

“It was a really hard decision for them,” he said. Webb said the finalization will be made today and those affected are to be notified Friday.

The layoffs became necessary, Webb said, due to an accelerating decline in reimbursements from Medicare and other third-party payers.

Additionally, he said, reimbursements made to the hospital now often occurred months following the original submission for payment, creating cash flow challenges.

Approximately 60 percent of patients who utilize Valley View services are covered by Medicare.

“Valley View faces the same challenges acute care community hospitals across the country face,” Webb said. “Our costs to deliver quality health care continue to climb at a rapid rate. At the same time, the payments we receive are declining and Medicare and other insurers are taking much longer to process payments. It is simply a tough, tough environment.”

Based on a study of American hospitals, Webb said, Valley View had a high ratio of salaries, wages and benefits (SWB) to occupied beds. The benchmark, Webb said, is about 43 percent. Valley View ratio of SWB to occupied beds currently runs about 53 percent.

“We have worked hard in the other areas of the hospital to be efficient, save money and still deliver excellent patient care,” Webb said. “With the pressure of reduced reimbursements, we simply could not avoid salary, wage and benefit costs any longer. They must be reduced if we are to survive and operate successfully in this new and challenging environment.”

Other health care and business entities in the area have been contacted, Webb said, and would be providing representatives to interview the employees for new employment.

“These employees have done an outstanding job for Valley View and the community we serve,” Webb said. “We will maintain our focus on quality health care as we reorganize and rededicate ourselves to our primary mission.”

The John Deere manufacturing plant in Dubuque, Iowa, laid off 50 employees Thursday. John Deere Dubuque Works, which produces heavy equipment, also laid off 25 workers last month. The plant's general manager said depressed market conditions led to the layoffs. Chicago Tribune (free registration) (10/30)

October 30, 2008Layoffs Sweep From Wall St. Across New York Area
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
A broad array of businesses across the New York region have begun eliminating jobs by the thousands as the pain of the financial crisis spreads well beyond Wall Street.

Companies as varied as Yahoo, American Express, Time Inc. and Swissport Cargo Services at Kennedy International Airport say they are preparing to lay off employees, including online ad sales representatives, magazine editors and baggage handlers, in the coming weeks.

Economists and labor-market analysts predict that the cuts will be part of a large wave of pink slips that is expected to drive up the city’s unemployment rate and strain the state’s unemployment insurance fund. In the week that ended Oct. 11 — the latest week for which data is available — New York led all states with an increase of 5,224 first-time unemployment claims.

Law firms are shrinking and publishing companies, which employ about 54,000 people in the city, announced layoffs of about 880 employees this week. Other service businesses, like consulting, catering and tourism, are almost certain to follow suit, said James Brown, who analyzes the city’s job market for the New York State Department of Labor.

“The professional fields are going to feel the impact of falling corporate profits,” Mr. Brown said. “We have a lot of firms in professional services and they sell to corporations nationally and internationally. With corporate profits dropping, their business is weakening. I expect them to start losing jobs soon.”

Those cuts would come on top of the layoffs of tens of thousands on Wall Street, which is in the midst of its most wrenching changes in decades.

Despite large cutbacks at some of the city’s most venerable banks, city and state unemployment rates have risen only gradually this year, with each holding at 5.8 percent from August to September. But that is expected to change: The number of New Yorkers filing claims for unemployment benefits has been rising at an accelerating pace, in part because layoffs are spreading beyond Wall Street.

In the first nine months of this year, about 60,000 New York City residents collected unemployment checks, according to the Labor Department. That was an increase of about 7,000, or 13 percent, from the first nine months of 2007. Financial services accounted for the biggest share of that rise, but every other sector in the economy also saw increases in unemployment claims. The number of unemployed city residents who used to work in the media, for instance, rose by about 20 percent to more than 2,800, according to the department’s figures.

Those numbers did not include the seven employees of Wenner Media, the publisher of Rolling Stone magazine, who were laid off this week, or the 600 jobs that Time Inc. said it planned to eliminate during a reorganization announced on Tuesday. But among them may have been some of the 270 people whose jobs were eliminated in the last three months at McGraw-Hill, which owns BusinessWeek magazine and the Standard & Poor’s debt-rating agency.

The digital media, a bright spot in the Bloomberg administration’s efforts to reduce the city’s economic dependence on Wall Street, may be the next to scale back. Yahoo, which is based in California but has much of its ad sales force in Manhattan, is preparing to eliminate at least 1,500 jobs before the end of the year, the company announced last week. Analysts predicted that some of those layoffs would be in New York, but Kim Rubey, a Yahoo spokeswoman, declined to say how many there would be.

Kevin P. Ryan, the chief executive of Alleycorp, which owns six start-up online companies, said that even a relatively robust industry like his would have to cut back if the downturn is prolonged.

“Almost every industry’s going to be impacted,” Mr. Ryan said. “There will be less financing available. Already, a lot of conversations about consolidation are happening. I think it’s going to happen pretty rapidly.”

The traditional advertising agencies of Madison Avenue, he said, are due for some significant layoffs because of the faster decline of printed publications. But much of that cutting might be put off until after the busy fourth quarter.

“The interesting moment’s going to come early next year” in the advertising and retail businesses, Mr. Ryan said. “I think a lot of it’s going to come in January.”

The outlook for the metropolitan area has darkened quickly in the last several weeks. Moody’s Economy.com, a research firm, raised its projection of job losses in financial services by two-thirds this month, to 100,000 from 60,000, which, it said, would put the region into recession before the end of the year.

In recent weeks, each new forecast of the fallout has been bleaker than the one before. Two weeks ago, the office of the city comptroller raised its estimate of job losses on Wall Street to 35,000 from 25,000. On Tuesday, Gov. David A. Paterson raised the estimate again, to 45,000, and projected that the state’s unemployment rate would climb to 6.5 percent. He also said his administration was projecting that the state would lose 160,000 private sector jobs by the end of next year.

On Wednesday, Governor Paterson told Congress that the state expected 90,000 laid-off workers who have been out of work for six months to exhaust their 13 weeks of additional emergency benefits by Dec. 31.

So far, investment banks, brokerage and other securities firms have accounted for almost all of the jobs lost in financial services in the city. But that, too, is about to change. American Express, the giant credit card company, has been hinting that a large layoff would be part of a restructuring plan that it expects to unveil in the next few weeks. A spokeswoman for the company, which is based in Lower Manhattan, declined to say how many of the layoffs would be in the metropolitan area.

While the number of jobs in all professional services in the city was still higher last month than it had been a year before, the legal business is smaller than it was a year ago, Mr. Brown said. Law firms are suffering from the sharp drop in transactions on Wall Street, as well as the softening real estate market, Mr. Brown said.

Heller Ehrman, a firm with a big presence in Manhattan (with Lehman Brothers as a client), went out of business this month. This week, the managing partners of Thelen, a law firm with about 300 employees in New York, recommended that the firm be dissolved by the end of next month. A spokesman said approval of the shutdown was a “formality.”

At Kennedy International, Swissport is considering eliminating 97 of 128 jobs in its baggage-handling operation by the end of next month because of the impact of the slowing economy on airline traffic, according to documents filed with the state labor department. Swissport, which is based in Zurich, handles luggage for several airlines at Kennedy, said Stephan Beerli, a spokesman for the company. Mr. Beerli declined to discuss details of the layoff plan, saying that no “official” notice had been given to employees.

“We are right now in a phase where everybody’s preparing contingency plans,” Mr. Beerli said.

Bell, Boyd & Lloyd has laid off 10 associates in its Chicago office this week. Associates are generally younger attorneys who have not made partner.

"Like many firms, Bell Boyd is facing unprecedented market conditions and we are taking measures to ensure the firm's efficient operation and growth," said Managing Partner Nancy Bertoglio in a prepared statement. "This is a belt-tightening measure that will put us in a better position to ride out the economic storm and remain competitive in what we expect will be a challenging business environment for law firms and our clients."

The cuts were across all practice areas and did not affect first-year associates, the statement said. Those laid off can stay with the firm until Jan. 1.

As Arizona’s universities brace for impending budget cuts, the only certainty seems to be that no one knows what will happen.

Because of the lagging economy and drastically reduced revenue expectations, the state is facing a budget shortfall that will likely exceed $1 billion in the current fiscal year and up to $3 billion in fiscal year 2010. Nearly every state agency expects budget cuts, and the university system is unlikely to be an exception.

At the state’s three major universities, the number of faculty positions likely will go down. Class sizes likely will go up. And construction and maintenance projects might get pushed back. But the extent of the cuts probably won’t be known until lawmakers and university officials get out their red pens.

More than $1 billion in annual state revenue goes to Arizona State University, the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University. All three have other sources of revenue, including tuition, donations and research grants, but the state general fund provides a massive portion.

“This is a very serious situation,” said University of Arizona President Robert Shelton. “It’s not like we’re sitting with a lot of extra money around here. We’ve been consistently cut over the years.”

That same sentiment echoes from Tucson to Flagstaff. Though ASU’s current enrollment of about 60,000 students makes it the largest in the United States, Virgil Renzulli, ASU’s vice president for public affairs, said the school has been chronically underfunded compared to its peer institutions.

“We’ve not been a place that’s been overfunded, by any stretch,” he said.

Compounding the uncertainty is that all three universities have already sustained large budget cuts recently. Over the summer, at the end of the last fiscal year, ASU, UofA and NAU were forced to cut $30 million, $22 million and $7.5 million from their budgets, respectively. Most of the cuts came from faculty and non-academic staff.

Much like nearly every other agency in the state, no one at the universities knows how much will have to be trimmed this time around, though ASU President Michael Crow recently told faculty to expect anywhere between $25 million and $75 million in cuts.

So when cost-cutting time arrives, where does the money come from? In the recent round of budget cuts, there was a great deal of focus on personnel, which Shelton said takes up about 85 percent of the UofA’s budget. ASU already cut 270 jobs through layoffs and attrition, Renzulli said, and the university also eliminated three athletic programs, though private donors were able to provide the money to reinstate the wrestling and men’s swimming teams.

The UofA has instituted a hiring freeze for most positions and departments, while NAU President John Haeger said his university is likely to eliminate a number of positions through attrition. Candidate searches for some open positions at NAU, such as chief facilities officer, have been postponed indefinitely. Haeger said layoffs are a last resort.

“As people leave, just don’t fill those vacancies. That’s a strategy that likely we will employ,” Haeger said.

But attrition alone is unlikely to solve the budget woes, which means the universities might have to start getting rid of people who are still there, probably excluding tenured and tenure-track faculty. All three universities said they want to avoid cutting faculty in ways that will reduce class offerings for students or compromise the schools’ missions.

Many university officials, as well as lawmakers, said there is a need for Arizona’s universities to produce degrees to keep up with the demand of businesses in the state, even citing it as an important factor in the state’s eventual economic recovery. But as high a priority as university spending seems, no one expects ASU, UofA and NAU to avoid the ax. Gov. Janet Napolitano said her preference is to let the universities and the Board of Regents decide where the cuts will come from.

“Will we be able to shield them totally from cuts? I doubt it. But can we do so in such a fashion that we’re not … taking a big machete to everything,” Napolitano said at a recent press conference. “We’re still understanding that our goal is to double the number of bachelor’s degree recipients in this state.”

That may be difficult to do, at least in the near future, if the universities are forced to trim their faculty. A likely target would be adjunct faculty — often part-time instructors who teach single units of individual courses. Renzulli said ASU will likely cut about 150 of about 990 adjunct faculty members, which may result in somewhat larger class sizes. But though the proposed adjunct faculty cuts have gotten a lot of attention, Renzulli said they are unlikely to go very far in easing the $25 million in cuts — at least — that Crow expects ASU to have to make.

“That’s not the only thing we’re doing. We’d never save that kind of money at that level,” Renzulli said.

Another potential way to trim budgets is to eliminate, or at least lessen, the administrative costs for some programs by merging them into others. ASU, for example, has proposed merging its School of Global Management and Leadership into its renowned W.P. Carey School of Business.

All three universities have various construction projects planned under a program approved earlier this year called the Stimulus Plan for Economic and Educational Development, or SPEED, which will provide about $1 billion for the construction of new buildings and renovations of older ones over the next three years.

The universities have submitted proposals for some projects already, though they have not yet been approved, and officials are anticipating possible delays. Even if that happens, however, it should not affect the cuts the universities will have to make because the bulk of the funding for those projects will come from state Lottery revenues, not the universities’ operating budgets.

University officials are asking department heads to determine where their budgets can be trimmed, and some are having trouble figuring out where the money will come from after already going through the same process earlier this year. ASU’s business school, for example, declined to renew the contracts of some people who had been hired to help with economic analyses, and contracts were not renewed for some staff positions the school felt it could do without, according to Philip Regier, executive dean of the W.P. Carey School of Business.

But the positions that were viewed as relatively non-essential have mostly been cut already or left vacant, and Regier doesn’t see too much fat left in the budget. The Carey school uses few adjunct faculty, Regier said, and it is running out of people whom the school can do without.

“To the extent that we can consolidate classes, we will,” Regier said. “(But) we don’t have a lot of capacity to do that. The main campus, the Tempe campus, is basically out of room.”

The proposal to cut adjunct faculty at ASU also included discussions about combining several theater-style classes into a few 1,000-student lectures, Renzulli said. That proposal was scrapped when university officials realized they did not have any venues on campus that could accommodate that many students. In lieu of that, ASU may direct more students to its pre-existing online courses if there are fewer faculty adjuncts to teach classes, he said.

Of course, the universities have sources of revenue besides the state’s general fund, such as tuition, but those are unlikely to make up the difference once the budgets get cut. All three are considering tuition hikes, though the amount has not been determined yet by the universities or the Board of Regents.

In a recent online message, Crow said all ASU students should expect a 5 percent tuition increase next year, though he said that “right now we are not” considering a mid-year increase. Shelton said UofA will have a “noticeable tuition increase.”

UofA received $153.9 million in gifts in 2008, Shelton said, which was the best year for philanthropic gifts the university has ever had. But those gifts can’t replace the university’s core funding from the state, he said, and given the state of the economy, UofA can’t count on repeating its record year for donations.

Shelton said UofA got $530 million in research grants last year, more than it received from the state. But any state-level funding cuts could negatively affect that, he said, because in order to get the big research grants, the university must spend money on critical infrastructure and personnel.

“The state helps us fund positions like research compliance positions, people who process the grants and proposals,” Shelton said.

For the universities, possibly the most important issue is making sure that none of the cuts cause any long-term damage. If the state asks NAU to cut 8 or 9 percent, that’s manageable, Haeger said, but there is a limit to how much the universities can absorb.

“If, all of a sudden, they came to me and said, ‘You know what? We’re going to cut your budget 20 percent,’ then it changes my world entirely,” Haeger said. “Universities do not recover from that.”http://www.azcapitoltimes.com/story.cfm?id=9729

Layoffs at University of Arizona
By Renee Schafer Horton
UA President Robert N. Shelton sent a campus-wide e-mail Wednesday warning of impending layoffs that sound far more serious than his prior "There will probably be layoffs" public statements at forums discussing UA's reorganization.

Highlights from his e-mail are below and I'm trying to reach him to find out why he felt he needed to send out the e-mail when he's already said there will be layoffs. Check tomorrow's print edition of the Tucson Citizen to see what he has to say.

"...The Governor and key legislators are committed to do everything possible to reduce the impact of the shortfall on higher education, but it would be
imprudent to continue forward without planning for a significant and very
challenging reduction to our state appropriation.

"...As much as we wish the circumstances were different, the reality we face is
the likelihood of a mid-year cut to the UA that could be greater in
magnitude than the reduction that was absorbed at the beginning of the
current fiscal year. As frustrating as it is, that is the hand we're being
dealt, and those are the cards we have to play.

" ...To address the long-term budget challenge, there will need to be permanent reductions through the elimination and merger of programs. That process will necessitate job losses on campus. We obviously want to mitigate job losses as much as possible, but there is no way to meet our long-term, permanent budget needs without them."http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/blog/view/736

Greene Tweed is closing down and laying off 13 employees on Nov. 4 at 7101 Patterson Drive in Garden Grove.

Heller Ehrman LLP is closing down and laying off 76 employees on Nov. 28 at 333 S. Hope St. in Los Angeles; 68 employees on Nov. 28 at 4350 La Jolla Village Drive in San Diego; 404 employees on Nov. 28 at 333 Bush St. in San Francisco and 134 employees on Nov. 28 at 275 Middlefield Road in Menlo Park.

Hemet Valley Skilled Nursing Facility is closing down and laying off 104 employees on Nov. 30 at 1117 E. Devonshire Ave. in Hemet.

Hemosense Inc. is closing down and laying off 29 employees on Dec. 2 at 651 River Oaks Parkway in San Jose.

Science Applications International Corp. is laying off 89 employees on Nov. 1 at 10260 Campus Point Drive in San Diego.

Sconza Candy C. is closing down and laying off 82 employees on Nov. 14 at 919 81st Ave. in Oakland.

Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Inc. is laying off 151 employees on Dec. 30 at 5700,5716,5722,5736 W.96th St. & 9625 Bellanca St. in Los Angeles.

Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. is closing down and laying off 108 employees on Nov. 16 at 19635 E. Walnut Drive in City of Industry and 114 employees on Nov. 23 at 2525 S. Sunland Ave. in Fresno.

Symantec is laying off 172 employees on Nov. 1 at 350 Ellis St. in Mountain View.

The Boeing Co. is laying off 58 employees on Nov. 28 at 2401 W. Wardlow Road in Long Beach.

The Western Union Co. is laying off 54 employees on Nov. 30 at 100 North Point in San Francisco.

United is laying off 59 employees on Oct. 31 at 1 World Way in Los Angeles; 107 employees on Dec. 7 at Los Angeles Int'l Airport in Los Angeles and 499 employees on Dec. 7 at San Francisco Int'l Airport in San Francisco.

Washington Mutual is laying off 51 employees on Dec. 31 at 9200 Oakdale Ave. in Chatsworth.

West Marine Products Inc. is laying off 390 employees on Dec. 25 at 500 Westridge Drive in Watsonville.

The following future closings and permanent mass layoffs were reported in Florida.

Federal Reserve Bank Of Atlanta is laying off 57 employees at 800 Water St. in Jacksonville by Nov. 30.

Harris Interactive Inc. at 60 Corporate Woods in Rochester, NY, will reduce headcount at its U.S. facilities by approximately 30 full-time employees. The company expects to complete this workforce reduction this month.

US Marine has begun laying of 174 workers at its manufacturing plant at 133 Weyerhaeuser Drive in Roseburg, OR, as part of a pending plant closure.

The following future closings and permanent mass layoffs were reported in Virginia.

General Dynamics Electric Boat is laying off 23 people at 702 5th St. inPortsmouth on Dec. 5.

Therma-Tru Doors is closing down and laying off 231 workers at 3000-3010 Mine Road in Fredericksburg on Dec. 12.

The following future closings and permanent mass layoffs were reported in Wisconsin .

Marinette Marine Co. will be laying off 137 employees at 1600 Bly St. in Marinette. The company blames the layoff on the failure to win one military contract and the postponement on the decision of another. The layoffs may not be permanent, if the postponed decisions is eventually made. The company laid off 89 employees at that location in September.

SPX is laying off 169 workers at 100 South CP Ave. in Lakes Mills over a seven-month period beginning Dec. 18. The facility is expected to close.

Tecumseh Power Co. is closing down and laying off 70 workers at 900 North St. in Grafton by July 14, 2009. It is doing the same at 1604 Michigan Ave. in New Holstein affecting 20 workers.

Wick Builders plans to layoff 63 workers at 2301 E. 4th St. in Marshfield beginning on or around Christmas Eve.

SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) - "We lost 2 billion dollars and like any other business we have to stay afloat." And to keep from sinking, the United States Postal Service is considering cutting thousands of jobs nationwide. Lavelle Pepper with the post office in Shreveport says they too are feeling the affects of the same disease hitting the country... a struggling economy. "We employ about 685,000 people. If we do layoffs it would include clerks, carriers, mail handlers across all crafts."

Pepper says the postal service is looking to eliminate 40,000 jobs nationwide. There's not an exact number on how many of those could be from the Ark-La-Tex. Pepper says workers who are not part of union with six or less years of service would likely be the first on the chopping block. "We've identified 16 thousand people that are not covered under contract. We'll see what those numbers add up to."

The postal service is also offering early retirement packages to workers over the age of 50 who have more than 20 years on the job. But according to pepper it may not be enough. "The preliminary numbers look like it's not going to be enough and we may have to do something else." But despite what may happen, Pepper says customers will not feel the pain they're going through. "The general public when it takes place won't se any decrease in service.. They largely won't know about it."

DFS Group, the luxury duty-free store chain for international visitors, laid off about 130 workers and managers earlier this week as a result of severe declines in its primary Japanese market and overall structural changes within the company.

Japanese arrivals dropped by 20 percent in September and have dropped 9 percent year to date, according to the latest estimates from the state department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism. Last year, 970,000 Japanese tourists visited Hawaii through September; however, this year, only 879,000 came during the same period.

“Certainly, you can see from the decline in arrivals from Japan that there has been a significant decline in our business,” said Sharon Weiner, vice president of global communications and government relations for DFS, which operates about 40 stores throughout Hawaii.

While half of the cuts came as a result of “a global corporate restructuring of warehousing, purchasing, management and other areas,” Weiner said that dropping visitor counts — especially from Japan — and the dwindling U.S. economy were also to blame.

Japanese visitors have been struggling with some of the same factors that have caused a reduction in travel from the U.S. domestic market, she said.

“There’s a lack of consumer confidence in Japan,” Weiner said. “They have uncertainties in their own economy and have endured the same kind of severe shifts in their stock market.”

While a favorable yen-to-dollar exchange rate has given sales a temporary boost, it has not been enough to stem the severe erosion in the overall market, she said.

“There’s been a temporary improvement in our sales. They haven’t been hit quite as badly as arrivals,” Weiner said.

DFS also is poised to see some growth in Korean shoppers as a result of a visa waiver program that goes into effect for that country on Nov. 17, she said. Likewise, DFS expects to see some gain from the Chinese visitor market as a result of a memorandum of understanding that has opened the door for leisure travelers, Weiner said.

“However, those markets are very small for us. Even if they double, it won’t make up for the drop in Japanese visitors,” she said.

As a result, DFS has reduced about 16 percent of its about 800-person work force, Weiner said. About half of the across-the-board cuts were full-time staff, she said. Workers were notified over the last several days and all but 10 of DFS’ warehouse personnel were asked to leave immediately, Weiner said.

“We have a good transition assistance program and some employees will be eligible for severance,” she said. “Further layoffs are not expected at this time.”

While the current layoffs were significant, Weiner said that DFS’ largest Hawaii layoffs took place in 1997 or 1998 after the Asian financial crisis.

“It was more than twice as many layoffs,” she said.

DFS Group, the luxury duty-free store chain for international visitors, laid off about 130 workers and managers earlier this week as a result of severe declines in its primary Japanese market and overall structural changes within the company.

Japanese arrivals dropped by 20 percent in September and have dropped 9 percent year to date, according to the latest estimates from the state department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism. Last year, 970,000 Japanese tourists visited Hawaii through September; however, this year, only 879,000 came during the same period.

“Certainly, you can see from the decline in arrivals from Japan that there has been a significant decline in our business,” said Sharon Weiner, vice president of global communications and government relations for DFS, which operates about 40 stores throughout Hawaii.

While half of the cuts came as a result of “a global corporate restructuring of warehousing, purchasing, management and other areas,” Weiner said that dropping visitor counts — especially from Japan — and the dwindling U.S. economy were also to blame.

Japanese visitors have been struggling with some of the same factors that have caused a reduction in travel from the U.S. domestic market, she said.

“There’s a lack of consumer confidence in Japan,” Weiner said. “They have uncertainties in their own economy and have endured the same kind of severe shifts in their stock market.”

While a favorable yen-to-dollar exchange rate has given sales a temporary boost, it has not been enough to stem the severe erosion in the overall market, she said.

“There’s been a temporary improvement in our sales. They haven’t been hit quite as badly as arrivals,” Weiner said.

DFS also is poised to see some growth in Korean shoppers as a result of a visa waiver program that goes into effect for that country on Nov. 17, she said. Likewise, DFS expects to see some gain from the Chinese visitor market as a result of a memorandum of understanding that has opened the door for leisure travelers, Weiner said.

“However, those markets are very small for us. Even if they double, it won’t make up for the drop in Japanese visitors,” she said.

As a result, DFS has reduced about 16 percent of its about 800-person work force, Weiner said. About half of the across-the-board cuts were full-time staff, she said. Workers were notified over the last several days and all but 10 of DFS’ warehouse personnel were asked to leave immediately, Weiner said.

“We have a good transition assistance program and some employees will be eligible for severance,” she said. “Further layoffs are not expected at this time.”

While the current layoffs were significant, Weiner said that DFS’ largest Hawaii layoffs took place in 1997 or 1998 after the Asian financial crisis.

Another Week, Another 18,885 Layoffs
7 Commentsby Erick Schonfeld on November 1, 2008

Since our last update a week ago, we’ve added 18,885 job eliminations at tech and media companies to our Layoff Tracker. That brings the total to 38,538 layoffs across 108 companies over the past two months.

Some of the bigger reductions this week came from Motorola (3,000), Qwest (1,200), and Electronic Arts (600). Among startups, there were job cuts at Revision3 (10), Emusic (10), Sugar Publishing (9), Aliph/Jawbone (25), matchmine (42, deadpool), and Gizmos (10). We’ve also started adding media companies facing disruption from the Internet, including Gannett (3,000), Time Inc. (600), and Conde Nast (32), whose Portfolio magazine laid off nearly all of its Website staff.

If you know of any layoffs at a tech company, please submit a tip with the name of the company and number of layoffs. If it’s been covered, also send a link to the blog post or news article. (For those more interested in who is hiring, check out our job board).

Unemployment shakes a family's routine
By Aisha Sultan
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Saturday, Nov. 01 2008
When Tom Westcott's daughters come home from grade school and see him in the
study, they immediately want to play.

Westcott hates to turn them down, so for a few minutes he escapes the freelance
projects and chases his girls outside.

Three months ago, it would have been the highlight of his work day.

Now it's a reminder of disrupted routines and unsettling worries.

Westcott, of Manchester, had worked as a senior account executive for a large
advertising agency for 17 years. In July, he lost his job in one of several
rounds of layoffs.

"The biggest worry is stability," he said. "When you're in a world of not
knowing where your next paycheck is coming from and you have your mortgage,
insurance, everything piling up ... it keeps you up at night."

Tom and his wife, JoAnne, realize they are still more fortunate than most in
the same situation. They have savings. Tom has many contacts, several of whom
say they would love to offer him a job if jobs were available. Jo Anne, who
runs an online business from home, has started taking on more freelance
projects.

Tom is also taking on contract work, in addition to the full-time effort of
finding a new job.

"It's long days, long nights," he said. Waiting for callbacks can be maddening.
And every day that goes by wears on your confidence.

Their biggest concern, however, was the impact on their young daughters' lives.
They explained to the 6- and 8-year-olds that Daddy would be looking for a
better job and the family would be saving more. They put as positive a spin on
it as they could.

"We want to keep some normalcy in their lives," Tom said. But the comfort of
past consistency is gone.

Three weeks into the new family schedule, his older daughter got upset about
who would be picking her up from school. It had always been mom, but now,
sometimes it was dad, and once in a while, a family friend.

"Someone will always be there," JoAnne reassured her daughter. "You will never
be left at school with no one picking you up."

At Christmas, there will be smaller gifts, JoAnne said. The girls, who already
take two dance classes and play sports, will not be adding to their activity
schedule. And, of course, JoAnne and Tom have cut their own spending.

"I'd rather keep the girls in a dance class than go out for dinner," Tom said.

Among the hardest moments are when JoAnne has to miss her girls' weekend
volleyball games because she's taken on more work.

"My daughter cries because she doesn't want me to go to work," JoAnne said.
Both Tom and JoAnne are optimistic that Tom will find another job soon. They
are determined to stay positive. But fear is lurking beneath the surface. The
fear of exhausting their savings. The fear of much bigger disruptions in their
children's lives. The fear of not knowing when a new opportunity will appear.

"Every day I go to bed wondering when it's going to happen," Tom said.

Hershey to Begin Layoffs in December
Saturday, November 01, 2008 4:57 PM
Symbols: HSY, PFE
(Source: Reading Eagle)By Reading Eagle, Pa.
Nov. 1--Hershey Co. announced Friday that it will begin layoffs in December at its former Ludens plant in Reading.

The company confirmed that 252 workers would be laid off starting Dec. 19. Hershey also reported that number to the state Department of Labor and Industry.

Kirk Saville, spokesman for Hershey, said the company plans to close the plant sometime in the first quarter. He had no specifi c date.

The candy maker said in April 2007 that it would close the Eighth and Walnut streets facility to remain competitive and continue its global supply-chain transformation plan.

The announcement came on the heels of a decision to cut 900 of the 3,000 jobs at the company's operations in Hershey, known as Chocolate Town USA, and transfer them to a plant in Mexico.

The workers at the Reading plant make York Peppermint Patties and 5th Avenue bars. It is not clear where those products will be made.

The plant was once the site of a famed candymaking legacy that began with confectioner William H. Luden in 1879.

Hershey bought the 400,000-square-foot facility in 1986 from Food Industries of Philadelphia, which acquired it from Luden in 1927. Its purchase added Luden's cough drops and 5th Avenue bars to Hershey's popular line of candies.

In 2001, Hershey sold the cough-drop business to Pharmacia Corp., a division of Pfizer Inc

BRADFORD, Pa.—Zippo Manufacturing Co. is laying off another 46 employees, the third time in five months that it is cutting its workforce.
The lighter maker's President and Chief Executive Officer Greg Booth says the layoffs announced Friday are "completely market-driven."

He says sales in the past three months were well below expectations. Booth says most of the drop in sales can be attributed to the financial meltdown, which has forced global customers to cut back on purchasing.

In September, the Bradford-based company laid off 80 workers. In June, it had cut 35 workers. Overall, the company has cut more than 14 percent of its workforce, leaving it with about 650 workers.

Motorola officials confirmed Friday that $800 million in cuts planned for 2009 will require laying off about 3,000 workers, with a little more than two-thirds of those job cuts coming from the handset division.

About layoffs will be made globally "across all businesses and functions" with a "little over two-thirds of these layoffs in the handset division," a spokeswoman said in an e-mail. The communications equipment maker had 66,000 employees at the end of 2007, she said.

Motorola co-CEOs Greg Brown and Sanjay Jha discussed the $800 million in cuts for 2009 last week during a third-quarter earnings call with analysts but never mentioned layoffs during the 65-minute session.

But Motorola's problems began many months ago and stemmed from an unprofitable handset division, now overseen by Jha.

Jha spoke indirectly about layoffs Thursday when he mentioned the value of the current group of handset engineers and designers at Motorola. They have done a "wonderful job in a limited sphere" Jha said, but noted that Motorola needed, instead, to have its designers build phones with improved users interfaces and services to compete with the iPhone and other new devices.

Jha, who was hired in August with the task of spinning off the handset division, also announced that the first Android phone from Motorola should be ready for the 2009 Christmas buying season.

Ellen Daley, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., said the layoffs are necessary, even though they will obviously be hard on the individual workers. The layoffs also serve as an example of how highly qualified engineers are not immune to job disruptions.

"They have to do something at Motorola," she said. "They are losing market share, they are bleeding and they are inefficient. Job cuts happen when you are not making enough money to support the jobs."

The cuts are most directly designed to show shareholders that Motorola is taking steps toward profitability. If condition improve enough, "they are going to be able to hire people," Daley added.

Daley, who has visited engineers and labs run by Motorola for several years, said the engineering culture at Motorola has tended to be in favor of fostering "creativity and ingenuity," which isn't practical in difficult financial times like these, especially with a slew of new smart phones coming on the market from competitors.

"If you have creativity and ingenuity as such a core component, it can be a downfall," said Daley, who added that she was trained as an electrical engineer. "Motorola engineers were often off in their little silos saying things like, 'I found the coolest thing,' but what's the applicability of that? They really need to march like a band together" toward a common purpose or set of products

OMG!!!

WE ARE FRACKING HEMMORAGHING JOBS!!!!!!!!
This is the most important thread on the board right now!

Thank you for your time on this Martin.
Very frightening but extremely relevant.

L.

The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside.
Allan Bloom; The Closing of the American Mind

I have been posting mostly U.S. layoffs but this is a worldwide situation like the following post....

Up to 800 job losses in Limerick companies
KATHRYN HAYES

Sat, Nov 01, 2008

UP TO 700 temporary workers at Dell in Limerick were let go yesterday amid fears of further cuts at the city's biggest employer.

There was more bad news for workers in Limerick yesterday, when it emerged that at least 100 jobs are set to go at Flextronics, one of Dell's suppliers also based at the Raheen Industrial Estate.

Flextronics, which employs 290 people in the production of warehousing products, supplies a number of companies in the midwest, including Dell.

Siptu representative Karan O'Loughlin said yesterday that work was under way to keep the redundancies to a minimum, but it is feared that at least 100 jobs are to go, with an official announcement due next week.

"We are in discussions with the company on restructuring to try and manage the current contraction in the general business environment, but I have to stress, and I can't stress enough, that the core business there is very solid," said Ms O'Loughlin.

"The company is actively pursuing business . . . but in the current economic climate obviously there's a very keen eye on the bottom line and costs," she added.

A spokeswoman for Dell stressed yesterday that the "several hundred people" let go were all temporary workers employed on a quarterly basis. She said ending these contracts was done annually and that the move had no impact on the 3,000 permanent staff employed at the Limerick facility.

"These are fixed-term contracts that are given to people on a quarterly basis. They are extra staff that are taken on to support the 3,000 workers on a demand basis and it doesn't have any impact on the permanent positions," said the spokeswoman. She would not specify the exact number of temporary workers let go, but it is understood to be in the region of 700.

Speculation over the future of Dell's workforce in Limerick has been rife since it was first reported that the company had decided to sell factories worldwide, including the Limerick plant.

Fine Gael Limerick East TD Michael Noonan called on the Tánaiste to clarify the position in relation to the future of the computer giant in Limerick.

"Even if these jobs are temporary, they still are jobs that are being lost and the sheer volume is a cause of major concern," he said.

"So far, the Tánaiste has failed to make a clear statement in the Dáil, despite several requests for her to do so . . . Whether it's a case of Dell downsizing and looking for more tax breaks or of Dell closing up altogether, we need to know," he added.

Labour TD Jan O'Sullivan said yesterday was a very bad day for Limerick. "Today's news is a very worrying development, causing serious concern in the Limerick area and my thoughts first and foremost are with those families who now face financial stress and uncertainty," said Ms O'Sullivan.

"It is of particular concern that so many good quality jobs may now be lost."

Mayor of Limerick John Gilligan said it was a sad day for workers in Limerick. "The union officials will work to minimise the amount of people on the dole but hard decisions will have to be made," he said.

I am an employee of a large manufacturing company. Many of us were laid off earlier this year. It's very hard to find other jobs around here. Employers see that you've worked for my company or several of the other large companies in the area and they don't want to talk to you, much less hire you. They're afraid you'll return to your old company as soon as you get that recall. It's just one of those things we've all learned to deal with in these layoff times. This is my 2nd layoff from here.
I'm just glad we were smart and saved and managed our funds smartly and effeciently. I'm lucky my wife is great at finances. She got me hooked on prepping. I do everything I can to help her with this now.
So for now, I'm trying to keep busy and stay hopeful about jobs and the economy. Goodluck to us all.

Saturday, Nov 1 2008, 5:26 pm
Rebecca Clark
Entertainment Distribution Co. has announced the impending shutdown of its facility between Grover and Kings Mountain as well as all other operations in the U.S.

According to Tom Costabile, chief operating officer of EDC, the action will result in 419 job losses at the Battleground Avenue location in Cleveland County.

Scott Cianciulli, spokesman for the company, said Saturday the phased shutdown is planned to start Jan. 1, 2009 and should be completed by April 30.

In a letter to employees, the plant announced that termination of employment could end as soon as Dec. 31 and the layoff "may constitute a plant closing or a mass layoff."

In a release, the company announced the sale of EDC to Sony DADC Inc. and that "it has entered into a definitive asset purchase agreement for the sale of EDS, LLD's distribution operations ... as well as the transfer of U.S. customer relationships to Sony DADC for $26 million."

Grover Mayor Robert Sides said that even though Grover does not receive any revenue from the plant, it will have negative a effect for the area.

"It's certainly not good for the area, with the economy the way it is," Sides said. "It's going to be detrimental to the surrounding area."

Jeanette Parks, who works for a contract company within EDC and who recently received a home through Habitat for Humanity, is still to trying to process the news.

"Right now I'm still in shock. I just got the Habitat House that God gave me," Parks said.

She first heard of the news when a co-worker called her Friday night to let her know of the impending shutdown.

She said she is trusting that God will take care of her, but she is still concerned. "It's human nature," she said. "I might not have a job to bring in any income."

Parks said she is still waiting to hear whether she still has a job. "I don't know what to expect when I go to work Monday; they might tell me to go home," she said.

Job clouds darken over Denver
Colorado's unemployment rolls have soared from a year and a half ago, despite the addition of 45,500 jobs.
By Aldo Svaldi
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 11/02/2008 12:01:00 AM MDT

Denver resident Reggie Garner doesn't like the job prospects he faces, especially when it comes to finding something with a salary and benefits.

"The jobs are not out there," he said while searching through listings online at the Denver Workforce Center. "It doesn't look good."

The former telecom-industry salesman recently left a job selling siding and picked up a temporary position helping out the Barack Obama campaign for $9 an hour.

After working for the past several years at Target and doing landscaping, William Maynard is again looking for work.

"I'll take anything I can get now," said Maynard, who hasn't found career stability since leaving a telecom engineering job in 2002 that Qwest Communications was moving to Albuquerque.

Garner and Maynard are among thousands of state residents thrown into the job hunt as a deepening recession dims employment prospects.

Since the state unemployment rate bottomed at 3.6 percent in April 2007, the number of unemployed has shot up by 45,343 to 142,194, for a 5.2 percent unemployment rate in September.

That 47 percent increase in unemployment rolls came even though Colorado added 45,500 payroll jobs in the past 18 months, making it one of the strongest performers in the country.

And what happens if layoffs escalate in the months ahead as many economists expect?

"Fallout from the financial crisis is rapidly spreading to other parts of economy. I don't expect state job gains to last much longer," said Bill Kendall, an economist with the Center for Business & Economic Forecasting in Denver.

Qwest said Wednesday that it would eliminate 1,200 jobs, many of which are expected to be in Colorado, and money manager Janus Capital Group announced last month that it would let 110 workers go.

Annual job growth in the state slowed to a 1 percent pace this September versus a 2.5 percent pace in September 2007, said Tim Sheesley, a corporate economist with Xcel Energy.

Sheesley cut his forecast for job growth for next year to 0.7 percent versus 1.5 percent this year.

The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment's Job Link service has seen job listings fall from 28,564 a year ago to 18,175 last month, said spokesman Bill Thoennes.

"Workers who are lucky enough to have jobs are hunkering down and staying put, unwilling to quit a job they don't like because they have no expectation that finding another job would be easy," he said.

First-time unemployment-insurance claims, increasing at a 10 percent annual pace in the first quarter, have recently risen at a 40 to 50 percent pace, said Michael Rose, chief of statistical programs with the department.

One explanation for the sharp rise in unemployment despite continued job growth could be that out-of-state workers moved here and absorbed some of the new jobs, said Richard Wobbekind, an associate dean with the University of Colorado at Boulder's Leeds School of Business.

"In-migration has continued at a pretty brisk pace," he said. "You have to assume that some of this in-migration is specifically to fill jobs."

Another explanation is that self-employed workers, such as independent real estate agents, may be increasingly seeking to join payrolls as their incomes dry up.

Mortgage industry suffers

Although Colorado is still adding jobs overall, several industries are shedding them.

Providers of mortgages and other credit have shrunk payrolls by 3,200 jobs since the unemployment rate bottomed 18 months ago. Construction is off 5,100 positions; manufacturing 3,800; and insurance 1,400.

Given that a housing downturn and financial crisis are weighing on the economy, those losses aren't unexpected.

Economists are watching the industries that have driven job gains in the state in recent years to see how they hold up.

Natural resources, although a smaller sector of economy, has generated thousands of jobs directly and indirectly, helping to pull the state out of the last recession.

"A slumping national economy could hold down demand for natural gas, pushing prices lower and dimming prospects for Colorado producers in the short term," Sheesley said.

Government payrolls, which grew by 12,600 jobs in the past 18 months, also may be vulnerable as losses in the stock market, falling home values and slower retail spending shrink tax revenues.

Consumers also are reining in spending, which will contribute to cutbacks among retailers, restaurants and hotels, Wobbekind said.

He doesn't expect professional and business services, a broad category that includes everything from accountants to administrative clerks, to offer much growth either.

G-P lays off nearly 1/3 of workforce at Coos Bay mill

COOS BAY, Ore. (AP) - Georgia-Pacific says it laid off almost a third of its workforce at its Coos Bay mill last week.

Company spokeswoman Julie Davis in Atlanta says 30 of the company's 100 employees, one entire shift, were laid off due to the housing slump.

The reduction in workforce was not limited to Coos Bay. Each of Georgia-Pacific's 60 facilities throughout the United States is experiencing similar cuts, but Davis didn't have specifics on the number of employees laid off.

She said this week's layoffs weren't related to the closure of the Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad line between Eugene and Coquille. The mill was affected by the rail line closure in September when the mill closed for more than two weeks so the company could find transportation alternatives. At that time, the company had 120 employees

GROVER, N.C.-- For the second time in a month, The tiny town of Kings Mountain is losing jobs. The latest casualty, an entertainment company bought out by an industry giant. Workers at EDC, Entertainment Distribution Company found out Friday their company has been sold to Sony and their jobs are moving overseas to England and Germany.

The sale and layoffs affect just more than four-hundred workers at the plant on highway 29 between Kings Mountain and Grover. Workers there manufacture CD’s and DVD’s, things which are used on a daily basis by many people. But, a statement from the company says people just don't use as many of them as they used to, call it"Substantial changes in consumer consumption habits." We can just call it "music downloads" and "movies on demand" on our home computers and cable systems.

Whatever you call it, Four-hundred lost jobs are not easy to swallow in an area that's already searching to replace hundreds of jobs lost in the last decade. "It's gonna be detrimental to everybody, county included .. because it is a very large plant and a lot of revenue comes off of the plant.. and they are very close to us so we'll also see the effect of it," says Grover Mayor Robert Sides. Those other layoffs, Spectrum Yarns laid off 140 jobs almost exactly a month ago and Hanes in Gastonia also announced in September it is laying off more than a hundred workers.

Circuit City, the troubled consumer electronics chain, provided more evidence of the downturn in US retailing on Monday when it unveiled plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and begin liquidation sales at a fifth of its stores as it tries to stay afloat.

The retailer was facing problems before the financial crisis worsened in late September. But it said the subsequent steep fall in consumer confidence and tightening credit market conditions had made it increasingly difficult to secure credit from some of its suppliers.

He added: “We are making a number of difficult but necessary decisions to address the company’s financial situation as quickly as possible.”

The retailer is to start liquidation sales at 155 stores on Wednesday, and said these would be shut by the end of the year, cutting its workforce by about 17 per cent.

Circuit City and rival Best Buy both expanded rapidly into national chains over the past two decades, with their big-box store formats pushing many smaller independent and regional electronics retailers out of business.

But Circuit City has struggled for more than a year against both Best Buy and competition from Wal-Mart and Target, the discounters, which have expanded their electronics offerings.

It said on Monday that some suppliers had declined to extend additional credit to the retailer to meet seasonal demand following poor quarterly results announced in September. It also said conditions in the credit markets had made it impossible for vendors to secure credit insurance for shipments, and that some suppliers had started requiring payment in advance.

The company said it was still reviewing its options, including further cost reduction measures, and that it was seeking alternative financing arrangements.

Colin McGranahan, analyst at Sanford Bernstein, wrote in a note to clients that “at this point, we believe that a bankruptcy filing for Circuit City is largely unavoidable”.

Circuit City’s problems come as Linens N Things, a national home furnishings chain, and Mervyn’s, a regional discount store, are conducting liquidation sales that will lead to their stores closing at the end of the year.

Seattle Times plans to cut 130-150 in another wave of layoffs
Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle) - by Greg Lamm
The Seattle Times plans to cut its staff by 130 to 150 workers, another grim reminder of the daily newspaper’s financial struggles.

In a memo to staff Monday, Publisher Frank Blethen and President Carolyn Kelly said they were forced to downsize to adjust to the current “economic malaise.” The announcement follows staff reductions earlier this year. The memo noted there could be further staff reductions.

Blethen and Kelly said they planned to reduce the staff by about 130 to 150 workers, by laying off workers and accepting voluntary separations. Some workers also could see their hours cut.

Times officials declined to discuss the announcement publicly, saying they first wanted to communicate details to their workers in a series of department meetings planned for Monday.

The announcement comes at the end of the newspaper’s budget process for next year. It is the latest effort by the Times to cut costs to adjust to a decline in revenue, a situation that many daily newspapers are facing across the country. In earlier rounds of staff reductions this year, the Times saw a reduction of about 200. The newspaper also closed bureaus.

As of Oct. 8, The Seattle Times had 1,599 full-time and part-time employees

The employees who were laid off Monday morning all moved to Portland from Oklahoma, and all are shareholders.

“We have to commit to making their share of the company increase,” Norvell said.

Vidoop has hired Lee Hecht Harrison, a placement and career development services firm, to conduct a two-day job placement seminar later this week for the employees who have been laid off.

Layoffs have been snowballing in Portland and other Oregon cities. Jive Software Inc., a prominent Portland technology startup, recently laid off as many as a third of its reported 175 employees.

Hewlett-Packard Co. is in the process of shedding an estimated 300 people from its Corvallis plant. Tektronix Inc., which was bought by Washington, D.C.-based Danaher Corp. last year, has shed about 500 people, with an estimated 220 from its Beaverton headquarters.

Hynix Semiconductor closed its Eugene plant, laying off 1,400. Xerox Corp., which has a manufacturing plant in Wilsonville, said it will cut 5 percent of its total work force, meaning that 80 people could be laid off in Wilsonville.

Qwest Communications International Inc., based in Denver, Colo., said last month it is laying off 101 people in Oregon. The telecom company said it will lay off 1,200 of its 34,656 workers by the end of this year.

Electro Scientific Industries Inc., which has its headquarters in Portland, said it was cutting 42 people out of 743 worldwide. Reportedly 24 or so of these cuts are local.

Qsent Inc., which was purchased two years ago by TransUnion, is reducing its payroll from 60 people in Beaverton to fewer than 15. Lattice Semiconductor said in September it will cut 14 percent of its employees, for a total of 125 worldwide. Twenty are being laid off from the Hillsboro headquarters.http://portland.bizjournals.com/port...ml?t=printable

Monday, November 3, 2008 - 4:52 PM CST | Modified: Monday, November 3, 2008 - 5:07 PMHawker to lay off 5 percent of work force
Wichita Business Journal - by Levi Wolters
Hawker Beechcraft chairman and CEO Jim Schuster informed Hawker employees through a letter Monday that the company will lay off approximately 5 percent of its work force, according to a company spokesperson.

Andrew Broom, director of media relations and public affairs, says the letter was mailed to employees on Friday.

“The letter says (the layoffs will occur) in the next few days,” Broom says. “Obviously we want to act quickly because prolonging it is difficult for our employees.”

Broom says he does not know if the layoffs will only occur in Wichita or if they will affect other Hawker sites. The company’s headquarters and major facilities are located in Wichita, with operations in Salina, Little Rock, Ark. and Chester, England, U.K.

On a letter addressed to employees dated Oct. 15, Schuster explained the recent financial turmoil’s potential impact on Hawker. In that letter, Schuster explained the economy’s long-term impact on local industry cannot be accurately predicted, but employees should “plan for the worst and be positioned for the best.”

It is the area’s third largest manufacturing firm with 6,300 workers, according to the Wichita Business Journal’s 2007 Book of Lists. The company leads the industry with a global network of more than 100 factory-owned and authorized service centers.

Tektronix announces fresh layoffs
by Mike Rogoway, The Oregonian
Monday November 03, 2008, 5:04 PM
Tektronix said this afternoon that it has laid off 150 employees at its Washington County campus, the latest in a series of job cuts that began a year ago when Danaher Corp. bought Tek for $2.85 billion.

"These reductions again reflect the need for Tektronix to remain competitive in today's market and also reflect our preparation for a more challenging economy in 2009," Tek said in a statement.

The company said it will provide outplacement services along with severance pay and extended medical benefits for employees who lost their jobs.

Danaher eliminated 464 jobs at Tektronix through the first nine months of the year, according to a federal regulatory filing issued last month. That's about 10 percent of Tek's total work force. If applied evenly across the company, those cuts would have included 220 of the 2,000 people Tek employed at its Washington headquarters before the sale.

As a subsidiary of Washington, D.C.-based Danaher, Tek no longer reports its annual sales. But through the first nine months of the year, Danaher said Tek sales have been "flattish."

Through September, Oregon high-tech employment is down 2.4 percent from the same month last year. Here's a tally of recent job cuts.

Atlanta-based Cox Communications on Monday told employees that it plans to cut its work force by about 460 jobs, or 2 percent, using a mix of early retirement, attrition and possibly layoffs.

It is unclear what the mix will be, said spokesman David Grabert. “There could be a small number of involuntary actions, but things have not happened yet and we are very early in the process.”

Cox Communications, which last year had revenues of $8.3 billion, has more than 6.2 million residential and commercial customers.

It is the nation’s third-largest cable television company, offering cable television, high-speed Internet access and phone service. The company has also announced plans to offer wireless phone service next year.

The reductions are aimed at increasing efficiency, Grabert said. “Essentially we are operating our business to position for future growth.”

The telecommunications company has about 23,000 employees.

Fewer than 2,000 of the company’s jobs are in Atlanta, but the number of positions affected here is not certain, Grabert said. “It will be 2 percent company-wide. But you can’t take 2 percent and apply it and say that in Atlanta you get ‘x.’”

Cox Communications is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cox Enterprises, which also owns the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Layoffs come to Nokia (NOK), the world's biggest cellphone maker: The Finnish company will cut some 600 jobs, especially in sales and marketing. Nokia will also cut back at its long-term R&D center, where it "plans to sharpen its focus on fewer but stronger research areas."

Nokia still has by far the biggest global cellphone market share -- 38% in Q3 -- but competition is increasing, especially for high-end smartphone devices, where Apple (AAPL) and RIM (RIMM) are expanding their efforts.

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